He absolutely did not invent CA. His book was published well after it had become an established modeling technique. Conway’s game of life was published in 1970. Complexity theory modeling had moved well past CA by the time Wolfram’s book came out, to the point that most of us didn’t know why he bothered writing it, much less thought it would revolutionize science.

[–] barkingspiders@infosec.pub 8 points 8 months ago (5 children)

I've been puzzled about the seemingly quiet reception Wolfram's idea seem to receive from the serious scientific community. He doesn't seem like a huxter and to my uneducated ears it sounds like a plausible set of ideas. Like other people are saying it's all a bit over my head.

But like, no one talks about it. Is it just blase or not particular relevant even if true, or just less useful than he seems to think?

[–] Smokeydope@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

The idea that simple rules lead to incredibly complex behavior is not new and wolfram was not the first mathematician to realize it even if he wants to pretend he is.

I'm big into fractal geometry so I would say Mandelbrot was the first 20th century mathematician to really get that concept along side the founding chaos theorist but even their realizations about the fractal nature of the universe ride off shoulders of others work.

I guess for computational mathematicians, the fractal nature of the universe and the simple rules making complex systems is new and mind blowing, for me and everyone whos read through deep simplicity its old ideas recycled into a new branch of mathematics reworded in terms a computer scientist thinks in.

Its not that the ideas aren't important or mind blowing, they just aren't new and the academic community has had decades to digest them.

And before the academic community came along many eastern religions came to similar concluions about the nature of the universe a couple thousand years earlier thanks to some good old fashioned shrooms and pot, so these general ideas have also been floating around forever and academics weren't even the first to suggest them only the first to kind of prove them right with logic and experimental evidence.

[–] barkingspiders@infosec.pub 2 points 8 months ago

That's some great perspective, thanks for the detailed reply!

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